Washington cherries reach promotable volume

After a long delay, Washington cherries are finally shipping in volume, and prices have come down accordingly.

About 400,000 boxes of Washington cherries shipped on July 6 alone, according to the Yakima, Wash.-based Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association.

On July 5, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported prices of $32-34 for 18-pound cartons of 10 ½-row cherries from Washington, comparable to last year and down from $60 for California cherries in mid-June.

“Things are going pretty well right now,” Eric Patrick, Yakima-based marketing director for Grant J. Hunt Co., Oakland, Calif., said July 7. “It was incredibly tight up to the Fourth (of July), but now it has loosened up a bit. Demand seems really strong.”

Topics:

About the Author:

Andy Nelson, markets editor

Andy Nelson joined The Packer as a staff writer in 2001. He became the paper's Handling & Distributing editor in 2005 and markets editor in 2006. Before joining Farm Journal Media, Nelson was a staff writer for The Kansas City Star.